Hootsuite vs SocialPilot Comparison 2026
Hootsuite charges $99 a user a month billed annually, so a second person on the account roughly doubles the bill. SocialPilot starts at $20 a month, or $17 billed annually, and adding a person costs $5 a month rather than a second full seat. The axis is how each one scales an agency team: SocialPilot is built around bulk upload and keeping client accounts separate at a fraction of the cost, while Hootsuite bundles deeper monitoring and approval workflows for a price that climbs fast per login.
Scheduling and monitoring for ten accounts up
Bulk scheduling across many client accounts
At a glance
- SocialPilot starts cheaper, at $20.
- Neither has a free tier.
Side by side
Hootsuite | SocialPilot | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $99 | From $20 |
| Pricing model | Free trial, then paid | Free trial, then paid |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Billing | Not stated | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | 14 days | 14 days |
| API | Yes |
Hootsuite
Scheduling and monitoring for ten accounts up
Hootsuite schedules posts, answers messages from one inbox and monitors what is being said about a brand and its competitors, which is the combination that keeps it in agencies and marketing teams. The entry plan covers ten social accounts for one person; the tier above lifts that to unlimited and adds inbox automation. Analytics and approval workflows are what the upper plans are actually sold on. It is priced per user per month, so a second person on the account roughly doubles it.
Our note
The per-user pricing is what to model, because a second person roughly doubles the bill and that is where this stops competing with the cheaper schedulers. Choose it when monitoring and approvals are requirements rather than nice to have, and choose almost anything else when they are not.
SocialPilot
Bulk scheduling across many client accounts
SocialPilot is built around the case where one person posts for ten brands rather than for one. Bulk upload takes a spreadsheet of hundreds of posts at once, client management keeps each account's approvals apart, and the reports go out under an agency's own name rather than the tool's. A solo creator will find that more machinery than the job needs. Anybody who has started posting on behalf of other people is the reader it was priced for, and extra accounts are billed separately from extra seats.
Why people weigh these two
- SocialPilot instead of Hootsuite
- SocialPilot at $20 bulk schedules across many client accounts, priced for an agency where Hootsuite prices for a brand.
- Hootsuite instead of SocialPilot
- Hootsuite is built for ten accounts and up from the start, starting at $99, monitoring added alongside the scheduling for a bigger account list.
Which one should you pick
Choose Hootsuite if monitoring what is being said about a brand and its competitors, plus approval workflows, matter enough to justify $99 a user a month billed annually. It is the incumbent tool many staff already know, and that familiarity is part of what is being bought at this price.
Choose SocialPilot if you are posting for many clients at once and need bulk upload from a spreadsheet, separate approvals per client and white-label reports, starting at $20 a month or $17 billed annually. Extra accounts cost $4 a month and extra users $5, which stays far cheaper than Hootsuite's per-seat model as a team grows.
Common questions
- How much cheaper is SocialPilot than Hootsuite?
- SocialPilot's entry tier is $20 a month, or $17 billed annually, against Hootsuite's $99 a user a month billed annually, roughly a fifth of the price at entry. Adding a person costs SocialPilot $5 a month rather than a second full Hootsuite seat.
- Which one is built for posting on behalf of many clients?
- SocialPilot is, with bulk upload from a spreadsheet, separate approvals per client and white-label reports that go out under an agency's own name. Hootsuite is built more broadly around monitoring and a single inbox rather than specifically around managing many client accounts at once.
- Does adding a team member cost the same on both platforms?
- No. SocialPilot charges $5 a month for an extra user as an add-on. Hootsuite charges per seat, so a second person roughly doubles the $99 a month rate rather than adding a small increment.
- Can either one queue a large batch of posts at once?
- SocialPilot's bulk upload takes a spreadsheet of hundreds of posts in one go, which is a specific reason agencies choose it. Hootsuite's listing does not describe an equivalent bulk CSV upload feature.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.